


Smog

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Smallville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex does Bruce a favour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smog

Lex thinks there were more lights on the last time he was here. A year  
ago, Bruce moved his offices into Gotham proper, and it looks like he's  
shut off most of the house since then. It's probably the best thing to  
do with the mess of neo-gothic stonework in question. Luthor Manor's  
understated by comparison. Some ancient lord of the Wayne family,  
whoever commissioned the facade out front, paid for turrets, and  
columns, and. Gargoyles. There are actually gargoyles hanging from the  
place, holding out big wings like they could keep the seacoast weather  
off the drive.

They don't, though, and these days nobody comes to take your car. If  
you want to see Bruce Wayne at home, you get out and you walk like a  
penitent up to the door, and you knock.

Which is probably why Lionel didn't come himself. He'd have had to  
bring people with him, to keep from getting his hands dirty, and the  
whole thing would have smacked of effort. And Lex didn't think about it  
enough to check into the man's current household arrangements before he  
drove out.

So it's his own fault that he's shivering in the library with cold  
Atlantic water dripping down the back of his neck. Alfred padded in a  
minute ago, bearing towels and a robe, but Lex is still in the process  
of stripping his clothes off and rubbing himself down as best he can,  
and he'll be lucky if Wayne doesn't walk in on him while he's shirtless  
and barefoot in the not-quite dark.

Worse because he doesn't have any idea what the man wants. Wayne  
Industries and LuthorCorp are both major shareholders in a couple of  
west coast tech companies that're looking more red than black lately,  
but that's not something you deal with at home. Or it's not something  
his father would send him into Wayne's home to deal with.

Unless there's a deal going on that he's not in on. Dark house, strange  
business associate, naked Lex.

It's not an idea he's really able to shake until he's got the robe on,  
and the slippers, and Alfred's come and gone, taking his coat and shirt  
and socks to be dried and pressed. Alfred leaves him with a drink, and  
cigarettes if he wants them. Lex thinks maybe the ones on the side  
shelf have opium in them, but he wasn't planning to smoke anything, so  
it's beside the point.

Still no Bruce Wayne. Long minutes until Lex is reduced to reading  
something to kill the time. 'Kim' is what he gets when he pulls  
something from the shelf randomly. It's got the right aura of colonial  
authority for men who like living in Old World castles. And he might as  
well read, because if Wayne's late, he's not doing it for anything like  
a tactical reason, whatever Lionel would think about it. He's just  
distracted.

It's why he moved the offices into the city, probably. Lex remembers  
meeting Bruce Wayne when he was thirteen and Bruce was twenty,  
remembers the way he was always distracted. Looking into the corners of  
the house like he didn't live there, or like he expected something to  
come at him. Easier to be the corporate warrior in some chrome and  
bleached-oak boardroom.

A flash of dark at the corner of his eye makes Lex glance up. If the  
Wayne Manor's haunted by anything other than Bruce, it's at least  
probably something actually dead, and not just disgustingly mutated by  
meteors. Except. Skin, there in the far doorway, and what's probably  
the white chest of a baseball shirt. Dark sleeves, dark collar.

Click of the door opposite, and feet.

Lex says, "Bruce, I think you've got a burglar."

Soft chuckle. Lex turns and Bruce Wayne's leaning in the doorway. He  
looks more comfortable in his skin than he's looked in years. And he  
looks older. Unless he's prematurely grey, the bright spot at his  
temple is just a reflection off the glossy black, but the lines at the  
edges of his face are real.

"Sorry I kept you waiting."

"It's fine. It gave me time to dry off. And meet the footpad."

Bruce flickers. "Dick, are you planning to come in?"

Softer feet even than Bruce's; Lex wonders whether anyone makes noise  
in this house. Dick, when he comes close enough to really be seen,  
looks a bit better than Lex thought. The t-shirt's thrift-store  
quality, but the jeans are new, and he's got thick socks on. No shoes.  
Messy hair in his face, but it looks less like neglect than an  
expensively messy cut put together by someone who knew what they were  
doing. Clean nails, big eyes. Boy.

Oh god, Bruce. No.

"Dick, this is Lex Luthor. Lex, Dick Grayson."

Whisper soft, "Hi."

Lex is. Lex has to smile. That or hiss. He wonders how, exactly, the  
gossip columnists missed mentioning Gotham's billionaire master's  
catamite.

"Do you want to stay, or do you want to go see what Alfred's up to?"  
Bruce asks. Lex recognizes the tone; Lionel has one like it. Go or  
stay, but don't lurk. Luthors don't listen at doors like servants.

"I'll go. Think Alfred'll make cookies if I bug him?"

"Probably. If he does, you have to share, though."

"Sure. Whatever." Glittering smile, and for just a second Dick wraps  
himself around Bruce. Arms around his shoulders, tight hug, then he's  
gone. Just long enough for Lex to get a sense of how small the boy is.  
Shorter than Lex is, still too thin to be more than an adolescent.  
Bruce is huge.

Bruce sighs and sits down. To Lex, he says, "Do you want another  
drink?"

Lex shakes his head. Wonders if this was tactical. Some sort of  
statement of how far Bruce Wayne is outside the law. Power that doesn't  
apologize for itself. He wonders whether Wayne Industries is big enough  
to do them serious damage.

Bruce doesn't drink. Just water. Ice in his hands, condensation on the  
glass and the tips of his fingers. And he almost collapses back into  
the armchair. Gnaws on the second knuckle of his thumb for a minute,  
then looks over.

"Lex, are we friends?"

"No."

Ghost of a smile. "Fair enough. Allies?"

"What are you offering?"

"I need a favour."

"Corporate?"

"Personal."

"I'm not my father's messenger."

"Yes you are. But I'm not asking your father."

"Then I'm listening."

"I need you to take Dick for me."

It's not what he expected. Something darker. Or. Less sticky than this,  
more convoluted. Take the boy. Move him. Get him out of the country?

"Why?"

Silence. "Lex, what do you think he is to me?"

"There's no safe answer to that."

"Try."

"I won't."

"I'm not."

Beat. "What?"

"I'm not." Hesitation. "I want to say I'm not sleeping with him, but on  
a purely technical level that isn't true. He has nightmares." Smile.  
"And cold feet."

"He can't be more than fourteen, Bruce."

"He's twelve. Thirteen next week."

Good god. "Who is he?"

"I adopted him. Four years ago, after his parents were murdered. It  
shouldn't have happened. It was my fault." Misery. "It's not what you  
think."

"Bruce, I'm not sure you should be telling me this."

"I'm not fucking him, Lex."

Quiet. He doesn't think it's a word he ever expected to hear the man  
say. Bruce is almost icily polite, most of the time. Better manners  
than anybody ever beat into Lex, but maybe being raised by Alfred makes  
a difference.

"So what do you want?"

"I told you. Take him away for a while."

"Why me?"

"Because if I send him anywhere myself, he's going to think I'm angry.  
He hasn't done anything wrong."

"Then why send him?"

"Because if I don't, I'm going to do something."

Lex believes it. He's seen Bruce smile maybe six times in his whole  
life. He remembers when he was sixteen and Bruce was twenty-three,  
kissing him in the winter garden out behind this castle during some  
hopeless, awful party. Bruce pulled back against the ice-covered trees  
and *shook*, and Lex got to understand in the next couple of days,  
through a pair of convoluted e-mails and one in-person apology and a  
lot of thinking afterward, that Bruce doesn't deal. Somewhere in the  
folds of his brain, Bruce is only about twelve, too. And if somebody  
loved him on that level ...

Fuck.

"How long?" It's a yes he hasn't said yet.

"I don't know. Long enough for me to think."

Lex nods. He doesn't think his father would want Bruce for a son quite  
so much if he knew him better.

"Can you think of a reason why?"

"It's going to be summer in a week or two. We'll be buried in smog  
until it coolds. Other people send boys his age to camp."

"So why not send him to camp too?"

"Even I'm not that cruel."

Lex thinks maybe every scion of mid-Atlantic nobility's been through at  
least one summer of cabins, canoes, and carnality on some obscure lake  
on the Canadian border. Maybe his generation and Bruce's will have the  
sense to wipe those places out.

"Take him out of the smog?"

"Into the country. Find him someone to play with. I won't lie to you  
and tell you he's quiet, but he's good at staying out from underfoot."

Lex nods. He doesn't think he's going to see much of Dick at all, even  
if he does take him. Wonders how he'll notice if the boy disappears.

"When?"

"I was thinking tomorrow." Somewhere behind his eyes, Bruce is mentally  
packing the kid up. Out of the house. Get out. Get out.

Lex wonders if Dick will have fewer bruises than he did when Bruce  
pushed him off.

Watches Dick come barrelling in, sugar-shocked and grinning, and  
bounce, landing on the arm of Bruce's chair. Watches him offer a still-  
warm cookie, too close to Bruce's mouth for the man to do anything but  
take it in his teeth. Bruce warms up to the smile he gets in return,  
and there's an almost-gasp of laughter when Dick drops over the chair's  
arm into his lap. No kiss, but almost.

Alfred touches Lex's shoulder, offers him two cookies on a very clean  
plate. Thickly armoured, like he already knows this is going to hurt  
like hell.


End file.
